Project management and collaboration skills play a major role in every business and often the outcome of a project is highly affected by the initial planning and monitoring stages of a project.

Project management is especially important for small and flexible businesses where all the work is based on a few people who have to communicate and develop the workflow. Globalization has made collaboration even more essential since many modern businesses like web design agencies don’t even have a constant address – people all around the world are working from their home.

You’re a small business looking to get organized. The technology’s out there, you know that. The problem is you can’t afford dedicated project management software. Or so you think. Luckily for you, We have searched through the Web to find five of the best options for small businesses on a budget. Forget cheap. It’s got to be free. You have the right to remain organized whether you run OS X, Windows 7, Red Hat, or some combination of the three. There will be plenty of opportunities to upgrade. Some might be worth it for your business.

Online project management software cleaves into two halves: the management of projects—calendars, milestones, tasks, and to dos—and the online communication between team members, freelancers, and vendors—whiteboards, forums, chat and messaging systems. Along the same lines, there are two presiding philosophies to online project management: less is more and more is more.

On the more is better side of the spectrum, Freedcamp, TeamBox, Wrike, AceProject and Zoho Project are the finest options we have encountered. They have online storage, plenty of (paid) options to grow your business, and can be customized to the core. Whereas Ace is high when it comes to free projects, storage, and tracking functionality, Zoho serves up Google Docs integration and an alphabet of features and ancillary products.

When it comes to stripping excess and delivering clean, functional software, small business owners need look no further than Wrike and TeamBox.

Continue reading if you’re looking for your first project management app or just seeking to check out alternatives. With a lot to choose from it might be frustrating to find the right app for you. This article presents some of the best project management and collaboration tools out there. There are also tools for brainstorming ideas, hosting conversations and even managing a newsroom. Each of them share common general features, however each of them also has something unique to offer.

Teambox is voted the best online project collaboration software for project managers, contractors, freelancers and teams. Teambox is the pioneer in joining social collaboration tools with online project management. It’s mission is to change the way people work by making it easier and more fun to get things done.

Teambox is free up to 5 users per project. In the free version maximum number of projects you can create is five, you’ll also get 5GB of free space and Google Drive Integration feature is enabled.

For small businesses aspiring to get and stay organized, AceProject looks like the best card in the deck. The free online project management software will not only help you keep tabs on projects, but it’ll also help you manage employees and expenses. With a quarter gig of free storage, FTP access, versioning, and up to five projects for free, and AceProject looks like the ace in the hole until you start playing. That’s when you run up against the service’s cumbersome, dated UI.

AceProject starts from the Basic service, which is free up tp 2 users and lets you manage two projects, 50 tasks, and provides up to 250 MB in storage space to the Gold package at $99 per month with unlimited projects and tasks and 20 GB of space.

Freedcamp is a project management software designed to manage multiple project tasks. Project managers gain full control of their project, where they can track worker’s time spent on a project, set deadlines, create a to do list, and share important documents and information. It features state of the art communications system, from where all users can can see which tasks have been assigned to them without the need to be signed into the system. All communication can be done on mobile phones, enabling communication at any time and place. an instant messaging system is also included so that workers can communicate quickly and easily.

Freedcamp is the first software of its kind which is completely free of charge (unlimited number of users and projects). But of course you always need to pay something, and it provide only up to 20 MB in storage space.

Zoho Projects

Zoho Projects dishes a smorgasbord of online tools for small-business communication and organization. The complementary version serves up the largest entree of online collaboration tools, including messages, forums, wikis, and online chat. At the same time, Zoho is a zealous manager. You can configure project milestones, assign responsibilities, set due dates, schedule meetings, and even post documents to an online storage space. If your needs grow, Zoho can accommodate with a wide selection of paid services. But the app is high maintenance, and the UI can be confusing.